Returning Home
by Saturn1
Summary: Heero and Duo get back together after four years, when Heero left mysteriously without even saying goodbye. Why did he go? Will Duo take him back? fluff, 12, sap, li'l angst COMPLETE
1. The Meeting

Returning Home The Meeting  
  
He stood waiting. He didn't know what it was that possessed him to agree to such an outrageous idea. It was four years since they last spoke and he was still angry. Of course he missed what they had together, but he could not avoid the feeling of pain every time he though of him. Every time he though of...  
  
...Heero.  
  
It was autumn and there was a cool breeze in the air. Duo leaned back against a tall, oak tree and looked around, then glanced down to his watch. It was 12:28 and Heero said he'd be there at 12:30. Always knowing Heero to be annoyingly punctual, Duo had shown up ten minutes before the scheduled time. Some leaves flew by, caught up in the free blowing wind and were whisked off to some unknown place, following the small sidewalk. Taking a moment to look up after them, Duo noticed a figure coming toward him on the path. Pushing himself off the tree with his left foot, he came to a full stand.  
  
"Right on time," he muttered with the slight undertone of anger. It was faint, but enough that Heero could pick up on it.  
  
"Duo..." he approached, "I...." It would have been unlike the "perfect pilot" to be so bad with words after so many years of being able to get right to the point with simple messages such as, "I will kill you." But the years after the war had changed him, as had the time spent with, then without, Duo.  
  
"You're..? What?" Duo was impatient. After so much pain that had been caused the day Heero left it was hard to connect any other emotions to him aside from anger and sadness.  
  
"I wanted to say I'm sorry... I never got a chance to." Heero looked to the ground with sorrow filled eyes. The once cold, hard, cobalt eyes that had turned into soft, love filled eyes, were now weak. He could not even bring himself even to face Duo anymore.  
  
"That's right... You were too busy walking out on me to even say good-bye, how could you have time to say sorry?" Duo turned away. "I can't believe I even agreed to come here. I must have been crazy." With hands clenched in fists at his side, the blue violet eyed pilot began to walk away.  
  
"Stop, please! Let me explain... I didn't mean for it to happen that way." Heero's pleading voice tried to pull him back. "I never meant for it to... I would never have wanted to hurt you."  
  
"Oh, so walking back into my life after four years to say 'sorry, let me explain' will work? To walk in right out of the blue after not hearing a single word from you!?" Duo had turned around and was trudging toward Heero with pain, bearing deep in his eyes. "It's not like you blew me off for lunch! This wasn't one hour - it was four years!"  
  
Heero looked up and met Duo's sad eyes. "I know... four years, three months, one week, one day and it should be about 12 and a half hours since we last saw each other." He took another step towards the other, "I had to go... I didn't want to... and I didn't say good-bye because it was too painful to go through..."  
  
"You had to go!? Damn it, Heero! The war is over! There's peace! We resigned! Our jobs as pilots are over, what could be so important that you'd have to go somewhere if you didn't want to go! No one owns you, you're not some puppet that will jump at strings pulled! What was so important that you had to leave me!?" Duo was furious at this point, he was screaming and tears were running down his face.  
  
Seeing Duo like this brought so much pain to his heart, Heero had to do something. He moved forward and held Duo tightly. Heero held him, against his struggles, and whispered to him, "You were... if I hadn't gone, they would have killed you..."  
  
~ ~ ~  
  
To be continued...  
  
'~'~'~'  
  
Ahem, that was rather fluffy. In any case it was a spur of the moment thought. Are you interested in it at all? If so I could continue it. It's kind of a fix to my writer's block. I just needed something to write and, well... that's what you got there.   
  
-Saturn  
  
p.s. You're actually getting another chapter to this, whoo! 


	2. The Confession

Returning Home The Confession  
  
The words echoed momentarily in Duo's mind, "They would have killed you." He felt suddenly limp in Heero's arms and looked up. Heero was now taller than he had been, a good inch or two taller than Duo, himself. He looked up through tear-filled eyes to gaze into those cobalt orbs.  
  
It may have been his own tears blurring his vision, but Duo swore that he could see tears in the eyes of the once 'perfect soldier.' The shorter ex- pilot lifted a limp hand to the side of Heero's face, his thumb gently wiped a tear away that had been bordering the edge of his eye. His tone was no longer angry, yet still filled with pain and sadness, "But. why..? Why did you leave me?"  
  
Heero's smile was bittersweet as his arms tightened around the only person in the entire world that he had ever loved. "I told you. if I hadn't gone, they would have killed you. Somehow, they found out how much I cared for you, how much I loved you, and used it as persuasion. I would never have left you, otherwise."  
  
"But who? Damn it, Heero," the braided young man clung to the other as though he were a lifeline, burring his face in the other's shoulder. "I'm the God of Death. I would not have died so easily. who could have frightened you so much as to think that?"  
  
The once stoic pilot ran a comforting hand over Duo's head, smoothing back his hair, "Someone worse even than Dr. J. worse than any OZ officials you could think of. It was an elite group that kept themselves hidden through the entire war. A group of terrorists who believed that they could use me to start another war. It does not matter who they are now, I infiltrated their systems; destroyed them from the inside out before they knew what had happened. It took me four years to do so. but I did not even do it for the sake of peace, Duo. I did it for you." His voice was calm and somewhat loving up to that point, then it turned cold, "If anyone, ever dares to threaten your life. they are as good as dead, themselves."  
  
Duo lifted his head from Heero's shoulder and looked up to him, the emotions in his voice were so unexpected, the violet-eyed, young man was taken aback. In those years that they were away from each other, Heero had certainly changed. "Heero, I."  
  
Before Duo had a chance to formulate what it was that he was trying to say, Heero interjected and began to speak again, "Wait. I have to tell you something." He regretted his choice of words immediately when he saw the way that Duo had stiffened. "Duo, before I left. I didn't know myself. I never let my emotions escape the shell that you tried so hard to break through. When they threatened to take your life. that is when I realized how deeply I loved you." Duo's eyes grew and sparkled with the tears that were still slowly rolling from his eyes, though it was no longer from anger or pain, but from happiness. "The entire time I had been away, I counted the days, weeks, months, and years I had been away from you. I went through each and every day, forcing myself to continue, just because I knew that one day I would be able to return to you."  
  
He cupped a hand beneath Duo's chin and tilted his head up to make blue- violet eyes meet his own sapphire gaze. "I was never able to say it before, but I know now, more than ever that it is true. I love you, Duo. And I always will, until the day that I die. Even then, I will carry my love for you into the next life, whatever it may be, always knowing that no matter what. I exist for you, and only you." He searched Duo's eyes and waited, expectantly, for a reply.  
  
At the worst possible time, all words had left Duo's mind except for those that Heero had said, repeating over and over again. His eyes shown with disbelief, it wasn't that he thought Heero would lie to him, it was just that he never expected to ever hear those words. All he could think to say was, "Why?"  
  
Heero was taken aback by his question and looked a little confused, " 'Why?' Why do I love you?" He laid his hands on the slim shoulders of the other young man, who nodded in affirmation to the question. "Duo, you're everything to me. Even when I was a cold-hearted bastard to you, you stayed with me, always trying to cheer me up, you were always so happy. During the war. I couldn't bring myself to care about anyone, that would have been a liability, so I closed my heart to everyone. You were my closest friend, the only one I ever trusted. I trusted you with my life then. and I'll trust you with my heart now."  
  
Everything was hitting Duo pretty hard now. It was true that before Heero's disappearance the two of them had been getting pretty close, but he never expected the stoic youth to ever even come close to admitting he had feelings for him. And while Heero was gone, Duo's mind would wonder about the possibilities that he had found some girl to be with, or even Relena. Relena, then name flooded his mind, suddenly. "Heero. what about Relena..?"  
  
"Relena has nothing to do with me in any way," he stated simply, but he understood what Duo had been asking. "I could never feel for Relena the way I feel for you. No one could understand what I've been through but you, and the other guys. There's no way anyone else could fathom being a soldier at our age." He shook his head to stress the point. "Nothing could explain the loss of innocents the five of us went through, and I wouldn't want to spend my life with someone who didn't understand. Out of them all, Duo, you're the only one I was ever close to, and while I was away from you. when I was taken away from you, I realized that. I couldn't live with anyone but you, and I never want to be with anyone /but/ you. Please. you must understand, I love you, Duo."  
  
He understood, he did because he'd felt the same way. It was true, no one else could share in their pain but each other, and though the five Gundam pilots did not spend much time together, he considered them his closest friends - regardless of anything that went on during the war, any changing of sides or deceptions, including the theft of Gundam parts. He smirked at the memory and then realized that he still needed to answer Heero's amazing confession and the pleading in his eyes. Duo lunged forward and hugged the other as tightly as he could. While still embracing Heero, he questioned, "Do you have any idea how long I've waited to do this?"  
  
Heero smiled slightly and wrapped his arms around the seemingly childish ex- pilot, clinging to him tightly as if at any moment he would be taken away again, "Four years?" He heard Duo laugh, but couldn't understand why.  
  
"Much, much, /much/ longer than that," he smiled. "Heero, I've had strong feelings for you, for a long time now. There was a reason why I would always try to cheer you up and get you to open up to me. I knew that somewhere inside that perfect soldier shell a real person was hidden, and I wanted more than anything to find him. Though, it seems to be that he found me, instead." Duo pulled back for a moment, looking into the unusually warm cobalt eyes. "Now that you're here. I'm not going to let you go; because, Heero, I love you. I was going to tell you. and then you left. I was so broken inside, I thought I hated you for leaving me. But I see now that you left for me, and I forgive all of that. It wasn't your fault, and I still love you." He once again embraced Heero, "Just remember, I'm never letting you leave ever, ever again."  
  
Heero just chuckled and shook his head against Duo's neck. His arms were wrapped around the only person he had ever loved, one hand moving to grip the long, braid made up of silky, soft hair. He remembered dreaming of running his hands through the soft chestnut colored hair and soon it would no longer be a dream, but a reality. His other hand was slowly stroking Duo's back in a gentle caress as he whispered, "Baka. don't worry about that, I'm never going to leave you. ever, ever again."  
  
.Owari.  
  
  
  
A/N: Okay, yep. that finishes it. I know it was rather fluffy and Heero ended up way out of character, but he was supposed to be, because four years can really change a person, so it was my artistic license. I would have done more with this, but it just didn't seem right, it seemed like something that should just end there. Not to worry, there can always be other fics later. *Smiles, then leans back, relaxing* Now for some R&R. ^.~ -Saturn 


End file.
